Who Killed Jack?
by MissFuneralSong
Summary: A Lost murder mystery. Told from varying points of view, the survivors struggle to discover who killed their fearless leader, all the while trying to avoid being suspected themselves. AU
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Lost or any of its characters. Although owning shirtless Sawyer would be nice. Or Ben. I love Ben. Anyway.

AN: Okay, this story is _definitely _AU, because how else could I off El Jacko and bring back a whole bunch of Lost's dead? Enjoy!

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Who Killed Jack? A Lost Murder Mystery

Chapter One

**Kate**

Walking contentedly along the beach, basking in the glow of the midday sun, Kate looked over at the camp with its tarpaulin homes and fairly cheerful inhabitants. It was a beautiful day, a far cry from the life to which she'd become accustomed since crashing on this island. Most of her was thoroughly enjoying herself, but there was still a small part of Kate that was watching cautiously, just waiting for something to go wrong.

She could see Sawyer, sitting outside his tent, reading a book with the aid of those ridiculous glasses he always wore. He'd taken off his shirt, undoubtedly to sun himself. And Kate was the last person you'd catch complaining. Staring at him for several seconds, unable to stop herself smiling, she chanced a small wave in his direction, which he noticed and returned, accompanied by a wide grin. Then she turned to search the throng of people for the familiar face of Jack, wanting to extend to him the same courtesy, but... she couldn't find him.

Slightly disappointed, Kate decided to go over and talk to Sawyer for something to do.

"Hey James," she greeted when she was nearly upon him, adopting the usual friendly, flirty tone she reserved especially for him. "Whatcha readin'?"

He smiled up at her, his eyes full of deep affection. "Just a little Stephen King," he replied, flashing her the cover of the book; it was _Carrie_. "Kinda dark, but not bad. So, what brings you my way on this fine island semi-afternoon?"

Kate opened her mouth to answer, but before she could there was a high, piercing scream. Both she and Sawyer whipped their heads round toward the source of the disturbance, and Kate felt a feeling of enormous dread as she saw a very distraught-looking Claire backing out of Jack's tent, clutching Aaron to her.

"He's dead!" she heard the blonde girl exclaim hysterically. "He's...Jack's dead! Someone killed him!"

Feeling tears well up in her eyes as she joined the hoard of people flocking to the scene, Kate peeked inside the tent's entryway. She couldn't just take Claire's word for it; she had to see it for herself. And she did. The tears overflowed and rolled down her cheeks as she took in the tableau, whilst several other castaways craned their necks to see over her shoulders. There were gasps and yells and sobs behind her, but she ignored them all, focusing on the limp and bloody form of Jack Shephard which lay on the ground before her. He was face-down, and his shirt was torn where it appeared he'd been stabbed.

Kate let out a soft, despairing moan and turned away, squeezing back out through the press of bodies to where Sawyer stood, a short distance away. He gave her a questioning look, which her expression answered immediately. It was true; Jack was dead.

**Charlie**

As soon as he'd heard Claire's scream, he'd sprang from his seat on the sand in front of her tent and gone running. Now he stared in disbelief through the crowd at the lifeless form of their doctor and leader, holding Claire closely, protectively, and cooing absently to a wailing Aaron.

"So it's really true," he said distantly, the words sounding strange as they floated out of him and into the air. "Jack's really...gone?"

Charlie felt the girl nod into his chest, and heard her sniffle. He instinctively wrapped his arms tighter around her, eyes still glued on Jack's tent. He'd heard Claire's exclamation, and now the hushed talk circulating around their little community - Jack had been murdered, it seemed. But who would do something like that? His thoughts turned briefly to the smoke monster, but by the look of things the killer's preferred method was stabbing, and the monster tended to be more inclined toward stripping the flesh off its victims and leaving their remains suspended in tree branches.

As he leaned his head on the top of Claire's, staring into the distance in equal parts shock and puzzlement, he couldn't help but wonder whether one of their own had done this.

**Hurley**

When the discovery of their deceased leader had been made, Hurley was standing at the communal kitchen with Libby, preparing a platter of fruit for them both and joking casually with her. Now he was frozen in place, listening intently to the rumours that were flying around. Jack was dead. Jack was _dead_. How could that possibly be true? _Jack_, the person who'd kept them all safe since day one! _Jack_, their fearless, infallible leader! He couldn't believe it. It was completely absurd. It had to be a mistake.

But... Why else would everyone be saying it? He looked uncertainly at Libby, who was standing beside him, wearing an expression of utter dumbfounded shock. She slowly turned her head, meeting his eyes, and he could see in those beautiful green pools that he'd come to trust completely that it wasn't a lie. He was really gone, just like that, with no warning at all. Hurley felt cold, deep down inside himself; it was fear, he knew it, fear and uncertainty. Jack had always been there to guide them all, and now... What were they supposed to do without him? How were they supposed to survive without Jack?

Reaching out with his left hand, not quite realising that he was doing so, he grasped Libby's right hand tightly, and she squeezed his back. That, at least, felt real. Reassuring. They both stood there like that for some time, in silence, watching and listening to the commotion going on all around them... Holding tight to one another to avoid being swept up into chaos.

**Shannon**

"What are they saying, Sayid? Something about Jack..."

She looked around, puzzled, having just returned from a walk down the beach with Sayid to discover utter pandemonium back at their camp. People were alternatively rushing about, screaming, crying, or simply standing there looking shellshocked. There were snatches of urgent conversation fluttering about the place, but she couldn't properly make out what all the fuss and panic was about.

A woman ran past her, weeping slightly, and Shannon caught her roughly by the arm. "Hey," she shouted, because the woman didn't seem very inclined toward paying attention. "Hey, what's going on? What the hell happened?"

"Jack's dead," the woman answered, staring into Shannon's face, her eyes wet. "Murdered."

The tall blonde relinquished her grip and the other survivor scurried away. Of course... There was a huge crowd around Jack's tent, and people crying all over the place... She should've known, should've put two and two together...

She still had hold of Sayid's hand, and was glad of it at that moment, because she felt oddly faint. This was surprising, as she hadn't really been _particularly _close to Jack, not like Kate or whoever else, but still; she felt hollow, cold and numb, as though someone had dumped a load of ice down her back. How the hell could this have happened?

"Who..." she began, stunned, but her voice broke on the first word. She tried again: "Who would want to kill Jack?"

"I don't know," was Sayid's quiet reply. He let go of her hand to wrap his arms securely around her waist, gazing out toward what appeared to be their leader's final resting place. "I don't know. But I'm going to find out."

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

Who Killed Jack? A Lost Murder Mystery

Chapter Two

**Juliet**

She couldn't see anything except blackness, interspersed with the odd streak of deep pink where some of the sunlight pierced through the gaps in her fingers. She'd been sitting like that for about a half-hour, with her knees drawn up to her chest and her face in her hands. Juliet had stopped the actual crying some time ago, but the despair remained, and so she continued to stay perfectly still save the wisps of hair being tugged this way and that by the gentle breeze. Her eyes, although she couldn't see them, were undoubtedly red. She sat down the beach a ways from everyone else so they wouldn't see her like this - _vulnerable_. Especially not him. Ben. She couldn't let him see her upset, not over Jack. It would be a sign of weakness, and Ben always found a way to exploit people's weaknesses.

Juliet knew that, eventually, she'd have to drag herself up off the sand, return to camp and help deal with the chaos. She wasn't sure whether any plans had yet been made for a burial, for some kind of a memorial service, but she'd have to make sure that she was ready when that happened; she wanted to be strong for them. They needed direction, someone to show them the way, to tell them what to do next. She'd gained their trust and learnt to exist as one of them, so she wouldn't abandon them now. She'd be the one they needed.

This forced a bitter laugh from her. Three years ago... The person Juliet had been three years ago would never have thought like that. She'd have sat here and wept for an age, not even considering getting up again, and certainly she wouldn't have considered taking up the mantle of leader to an entire camp full of people. No, she'd have stayed like that for as long as possible, buried so deep in misery that nothing would be able to draw her out of it. At least there was that to comfort her; she wasn't that person any more. She was stronger now. And she _would _help these people find direction after this tragedy. Because that was what they needed.

Slowly, Juliet withdrew her head from her hands, wiping the half-dried tears from her cheeks, stood up, and headed back to camp.

**Ben**

"I understand that I'm certainly the most logical choice, Sayid - and there's little chance of you actually believing this - but I'm not the killer."

It had come as a surprise to Ben when Sayid had rushed up to him - to the tent in which he was being held captive - untied him, grabbed him by the shirt front and dragged him outside, slamming him, hard, into a tree trunk. Apparently there was a great deal of commotion occurring due to Jack's very recent murder, and of course when there was a group of panicking people with no leader, no figurehead from which to take example, they often did irrational things. Things like accuse a man who had been bound by the wrists and tied inside a tent, with no possible way of escaping.

"You're right," snarled the Iraqi man, "I don't believe you. You are the only one here with a motive for killing Jack, Ben - I see no alternative. You must have gotten free of the ropes somehow, murdered him, and crept back in here once you were done."

Ben glanced around him. A great many of the survivors had ceased whatever activities they'd been involved in and crowded around to watch the possible lynching. He felt their eyes boring into him, trying to see guilt on his face, but there was none. He was completely blank, expressionless; he'd learned long ago to keep up this appearance no matter the situation. While he occasionally slipped, when a situation was simply too dire not to, keeping up his facade now required minimal effort. Ben turned his piercing gaze back to Sayid.

"The 'only one' with a motive?" he said skeptically, raising his eyebrows. "Last I checked, I was far from the only one." The other man gave him a look that would make a weaker person break into a cold sweat. But Ben stayed perfectly calm, as always.

"What do you mean?" asked Sayid, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. He was intrigued despite himself, that was evident. And if there was one thing Ben had a particular talent for, it was planting doubt, uncertainty, in people's minds.

"Well, think about it," he said, as he felt the Iraqi's grip on him loosen slightly. "There are a lot of people in this camp, and everyone has their secrets. Jack had a great deal of influence in your little society, so maybe there was someone here who wanted to usurp him, to take his power for themselves? Or perhaps it's simpler than that - a personal grudge." He cast his eyes over the assembled crowd, and several of them dropped their gaze as he looked at them. "Perhaps one of them had a problem with Jack himself. Or it could have been a simple random act of violence. In fact, there's any number of reasons someone could have for murdering Jack."

Sayid appeared to give this some thought for several seconds, before grudgingly letting go of Ben's shirt. "Fine," he hissed through gritted teeth, "if you're so sure of your own innocence, then I'm sure you don't have a problem with assisting us? Seeing as you know so very much about criminology."

Ben gave the man a look which would have been defiant if his expression wasn't still carefully blank. "Fine. I'll absolutely help you."

**Sun**

Standing with her husband and the rest of the flock of people who stood watching Sayid and Ben's confrontation, Sun leaned over to Jin and whispered to him in Korean, "Ben says he's going to help us."

Jin snorted in disbelief, and Sun looked at him. She didn't trust Ben, of course, and she never would, but... he seemed to know a lot more than any of them. And he _had _been tied up in that tent for days, only let out under close supervision to answer the call of nature and then immediately brought back and imprisoned again. He had a solid alibi. It unnerved her beyond words to do it, but... Sun actually believed that he was innocent. Although believing that he would actually try and help them was a different matter entirely.

Most of the people wandered away now, returning to their tasks or their mourning, except a few. Sun was one of them. Her husband made to walk away, grasping her hand, but she stayed where she was, even when he stepped in front of her, took her face in his hands and stared into her eyes, telling her, "Let's go. There's nothing we can do here."

"No, Jin," she said firmly. "You can go. I'm going to help them."

"Sun - " he began, becoming exasperated. But she cut him off, slipping flawlessly into English now.

"_No_, Jin. I've made my choice - I want to help them find the killer. And you can't stop me." With that, Sun ducked past him, stopping when she was beside Sayid. Shannon joined them, taking the Iraqi man's hand in hers and glaring suspiciously at Ben.

Sayid turned, appearing to notice the Korean woman for the first time at that moment. "Sun," he said, surprised. "What do you need?"

She told him. He and the blonde woman stared at her in disbelief, while Ben simply stared, face devoid of emotion. She didn't care what they thought, anyway; Jack had been their guide through all of this insanity, helping them all every step of the way, always putting their needs before his own. The least she could do to repay him was find the person who'd killed him and make certain they were punished for it. Sun had not yet shed tears for him, and she wouldn't until the murderer had been brought to justice - such justice as there was on the island.

"Don't try to persuade me otherwise," she told the three, deadly serious. "I know what I'm doing. I am going to help you."

_To be continued..._


End file.
